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11. Tense, aspect, mood

  • Jan Lindschouw
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Abstract

This chapter reviews the most typical uses of tense, aspect and mood in Romance languages. Our discussion will concentrate on French, Italian and Spanish since these languages can be considered to form a continuum with French being the most innovative and Spanish the most conservative language in relation to their common source, Latin. The main focus is on regularities across the Romance languages, but important variations are also discussed. The chapter is divided into four parts. The first part deals with the tense system with special emphasis on the analytic and synthetic future and past forms and their relationship. The second part focuses on the aspectual opposition between the imperfect and the preterite and their interaction with lexical aspect (Aktionsart). The third part considers different mood forms, especially the opposition between the indicative and the subjunctive and their uses in different types of subordinate clauses. The last part discusses the use of tense and mood in reported speech (the so-called consecutio temporum).

Abstract

This chapter reviews the most typical uses of tense, aspect and mood in Romance languages. Our discussion will concentrate on French, Italian and Spanish since these languages can be considered to form a continuum with French being the most innovative and Spanish the most conservative language in relation to their common source, Latin. The main focus is on regularities across the Romance languages, but important variations are also discussed. The chapter is divided into four parts. The first part deals with the tense system with special emphasis on the analytic and synthetic future and past forms and their relationship. The second part focuses on the aspectual opposition between the imperfect and the preterite and their interaction with lexical aspect (Aktionsart). The third part considers different mood forms, especially the opposition between the indicative and the subjunctive and their uses in different types of subordinate clauses. The last part discusses the use of tense and mood in reported speech (the so-called consecutio temporum).

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